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The City of San José has an ongoing investment in bike system started with Bike Plan 2020; the old citywide bike plan, which was adopted by city council in 2009. The Bike Plan 2020 called for completing a 400-mile on-street network of bike lanes and bike routes. This network was completed in 2020 and thus the plan has been retired. Better Bike Plan 2025; city's new citywide bike plan, was adopted by city council in October 2020 to replaces the old Bike Plan 2020 and calls for completing a 557-mile network of all-ages-and-abilities bikeways, which consist mainly of Separated Bikeways and Bike Boulevards.
This 557-mile network includes 400 miles existing/completed from the old plan (253 of these existing miles will be enhanced to become all-ages-and-abilities bikeways plus 157 miles of planned/new bikeways, all of which will be all-ages-and-abilities bikeways), and Better Bikeway SJ Project which is a 2018-2020 "quick-build" project to build an all-ages-and-abilities bike network in the downtown area (not citywide) including an 18-mile downtown project which is now essentially complete.
All these activities need progress assessments towards the defined three goals in the Better Bike Plan 2025 including:
Safety – Increase safety for all people biking in San José in alignment with Vision Zero San José
Mode Shift – Increase the number of trips made by bike in San José
Equity – Apply the plan in a way that serves historically underserved communities
San José State University
The city needs such assessments to determine if the bikeway improvements are in fact reducing accidents, increasing the number of trips taken by bikes and scooters, and benefiting historically underserved communities. If not, the city needs to understand why and what we need to do to improve. For this purpose, the PI of this proposal conveyed a team of SAVi center at SJSU, Mineta Transportation Institute, the City of San José, San José Downtown Residents Association (SJDRA), and Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition (SVBC) to conduct a community-engaged research project for assessing the outcomes of the bikeway improvements. This project was recently selected to participate in Spin’s The Streets: Mobility Data for Safer Streets (MDSS) initiative which will provide a suite of data sources, software tools and physical equipment for this project. This project will focus on the Better Bikeways Program, the City’s implemented bikeway in 2020 plus the downtown lane. This plan incorporates street redesign and traffic calming strategies to develop 400 miles of a city-wide micro mobility network with a focus on equity and safety and to use this infrastructure to promote a mode change from automobile to active transportation. This project will assess the impacts on the wellbeing of the residents by focusing on the outcomes of this plan for safety, equity, and environmental friendliness. Providing evidence-based analysis of the implemented plans has two major benefits for the community. First, if the analysis reveals positive outcomes for the residents’ well-being, it could persuade residents to adapt to active transportation facilities in a very car-oriented region. Second, if our analyses show adverse impacts of the plans, the city will benefit from the findings for the necessary adjustments in its 2050 Bike Plan. Although labeled as Better Bikeways, this plan targets infrastructures that also cover other micro mobility infrastructures such as scooters.
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SJSU Research Foundation 210 N. 4th Street, 4th Floor, San Jose, CA 95112 Phone: 408-924-7560 Email: mineta-institute@sjsu.edu